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Following heavy snowfall in the 2006/07 winter in Ghor Province in central-west Afghanistan, seasonal wheat planting in early 2007 was delayed, and a lack of sufficient rainfall following the planting caused the main harvest in August and September to fail. Households in this region depend on wheat production as an important source of income and food access, and food security conditions were identified as deteriorating by the Combined Disaster Management Team (CDMT), which is comprised of institutions including the Department of Agriculture, Department of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (DRRD), Afghan Red Crescent Society and the Provincial Reconstruction Team/NATO, which includes representatives from USAID and the US State Department. In response, the World Food Programme (WFP), DRRD and FEWS NET undertook a rapid food needs assessment (RFNA) of the situation in Ghor.

The main findings of this assessment are:

• The rain-fed wheat crop was severely damaged, to the point of total crop failure in many areas.
• Irrigated wheat crop yields decreased to up to 50 percent of normal.
• The majority of the population of Ghor does not have the purchasing power to buy its needed food through April.
• Private cereal markets do not have the capacity to supply sufficient food, even if households in Ghor had sufficient purchasing power.
• The livestock situation has improved, and districts with a high prevalence of livestock could buffer the impact of crop failure.
• Until now, the coping strategies used by households in Ghor are reversible, but some households have started migrating to Hirat and Helmand and have sold their land.
• To save lives and livelihoods, 14,231 MT of short-term food assistance is needed from December through April.
• The long-term food security situation in Ghor requires a sustainable solution, including connecting Ghor with the rest of Afghanistan through road construction and reviving the traditional livelihood of livestock rearing.

Objectives

The main objective of this assessment is to inform decision makers (including the Afghan government, the donor community and humanitarian agencies, particularly the WFP program in Hirat) about the current food security situation in Ghor and hazards that may affect the population of Ghor in the coming months. Specific objectives include:

• Establish the current level of food security, including the number of households receiving assistance;

• Identify the factors that will affect food security, and the vulnerability to those factors, in the coming months;

• Determine the level of food and non-food assistance necessary (if any), including appropriate interventions and the number of households requiring the assistance; and

• If food aid is needed and recommended, determine the appropriate type of food-based interventions and the duration and the number of households/people to be assisted under each intervention.

Methodology

The WFP Emergency Food Security Assessment (EFSA) techniques and tools were used as the analytical framework for this assessment. The EFSA approach takes into account households’ food security, livelihoods, coping strategies, social and care practices, and public health-related issues. In addition, the assessment team undertook rapid food and livestock markets assessments and interviewed various institutions. See Annex 5 for a list of assessment team participants.

Primary data was collected through field visits in 15 villages in Chighcharan, Pasaband, Taiwara, Daulina, Dawlatyar, Shahrak and Tolak districts of Ghor Province. The following techniques were used:

• Key informant interviews with district authorities, Department of Rural Rehabilitation and Development, district agriculture extension officers and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) operating in Ghor Province
• Focus-group discussions with men at the community and household level
• Assessment team observations
• Ranking exercises

Figure 1. Districts of Ghor Province   FULL-SIZE IMAGE

Background

Ghor Province is located in central-west Afghanistan (Figure 1). It borders eight other provinces, and is divided into 10 districts. It covers a land area of 36,657 square kilometers, representing 5.67 percent of the total Afghan territory. Ghor is home to 635,302 people, representing 2.7 percent of the total population of Afghanistan, making it the 15th most populous province in the country. The population of Ghor is distributed among the 10 districts as shown in Annex 2; the most populous district is the provincial centre, Chighcharan, followed by Pasaband and Lal-or-Sarjangal, with 20.8 percent, 14.5 percent and 14.6 percent of the total population of the province respectively.

Almost the entire population of Ghor lives in rural areas. The urban population consists of only 6,151 people, all located in the provincial center. With less than 1 percent of its population living in urban areas, Ghor is one of the least-urbanized provinces in Afghanistan.

The rural population of Ghor – 623,882 inhabitants – is distributed over 2,172 settlements of varying sizes. The smallest settlement includes as few as 10 people, and the largest as many as 1,788. Small-sized villages are predominant, which is similar to other provinces such as Wardak. Out of the 2,172 total villages, 414, representing close to one-fifth, have populations of less than 100 people. Another 619 villages, representing 28 percent of all villages, have populations of between 100 and 199 people.

The main livelihoods in Ghor Province are agricultural production (70 percent of which is rain-fed, and 30 percent irrigated), livestock rearing and labor migration to Iran. Migration emerged as a livelihood during the past 10 years of drought that significantly weakened the viability of the first two livelihoods. During the peak period of the drought (1998 to 2003), most households in Ghor migrated to camps for internally displaced people in Hirat Province. Ghor became heavily dependent on food aid, but local agricultural production still plays a vital role in household food security, particularly for middle-income and poor subsistence farmers. In comparison to other districts, livestock rearing is most prominent in Chighcharan, and the least important in Saghar. Dawlatyar District has the highest ratio of irrigated land while Lal-or-Sarjangal District has the lowest ratio of irrigated land. Charsada District has the highest amount of rain-fed land per person.

Ghor’s elevation is 2,500 m above sea level, and some passes that connect Ghor with rest of Afghanistan can reach more than 3,500 m. These high elevations cause road blockages during most of the winter time from November through April. As most agricultural land in Ghor is rain-fed, the main wheat planting takes place in spring, February and March, once the harsh winter conditions have subsided. The 2006/07 winter was particularly severe, and in February and March 2007 much land was still covered by snow and farmers could not plant their wheat on time. Once snow had melted by April, farmers were able to plant their wheat, but a lack of rainfall after the planting had been completed prevented sufficient plant growth and resulted in crop failure.

Key assessment findings

1. Crop (wheat) performance

• The late cultivation that resulted from the severe winter and lack of subsequent rain caused significant wheat losses throughout the province. See Annex 1 for details of the crop performance by district.

• Rain-fed wheat losses are severe all over Ghor Province, especially in the lowlands where the crop generally failed completely, yielded no more than the quantity of seeds that were planted or produced only straw. Due to the bad germination rate, in many cases farmers did not even attempt to harvest their rain-fed wheat. However, in higher elevations, rain-fed wheat yields were slightly better; 7 kg of planted seed produced between 14 kg and 21 kg.

• The seeds produced by the harvested rain-fed wheat were also of poor quality, limiting their benefit for future planting.

• Irrigated wheat losses occurred in both lowland areas and higher altitudes, with reductions of up to 40 to 50 percent of yields in comparison to normal years. Irrigated wheat suffered partially as result of a lack of improved varieties of seeds; the seeds that were used little resistance to agricultural diseases and low temperatures.

2. Markets

• Food availability is chronically low in Ghor, which results in limited household food access. This year, prices are even higher than normal (Figure 2). For wheat prices by district, see Annex 4.

• Unlike other provinces in Afghanistan, the food traders in Ghor are not native to the province. This undermines or restricts the borrowing of food from food traders, which is a widely used coping strategy in other provinces by vulnerable households in times of stress, and also encourages more opportunistic pricing of traded foods.

• In comparison to other provinces in Afghan, food markets in Ghor are very sensitive to seasonality. Transportation costs to the province per 7 kg vary from Afs 18 to Afs 40, depending on road conditions due to seasonal variability. These high and variable transportation costs negatively affect purchasing power and traders’ incentive to supply the province.  

• In comparison to other districts in the province, Charsada, Pasaband and Lal-or-Sarjangal are particularly vulnerable to seasonality (quantities of snow and mud are particularly high in the winter and spring seasons) that ultimately affect transportation costs. For example, households in Charsada District pay an additional Afs 40 in addition to what traders pay for transportation between Hirat and Ghor.

• Due to high exposure to natural shocks, which prevent livelihoods from strengthening over time, and a lack of sustainable sources of income that result in weak purchasing power, the population of Ghor is highly vulnerable to price increases.

• The weak purchasing power by itself negatively affects long-term food availability and quality, as the low effective demand over time provides a disincentive for traders to regularly supply the local markets with quality higher-priced food.

• The private food markets of Ghor Province do not have the capacity to supply the needed food even if households were to have adequate purchasing power.

• In comparison to 2006, average livestock market prices increased significantly in 2007 by 150 percent. This is a result of good livestock health resulting from good pasture availability and increased demand for animals by external traders. This may strengthen coping strategies and the purchasing power of households; Chighcharan and Dawlatyar districts have the highest prevalence of livestock.

Livelihoods and socio-economic profiles

Interviews with focus groups in the 15 assessed villages revealed four main livelihoods profiles in Ghor Province (Figure 3).